Peace for the World

Peace for the World
First democratic leader of Justice the Godfather of the Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Honourable Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam

Monday, October 23, 2017

What does the country need?

Expressways or rurak roads


 

It’s heartening to note that the subject of rural development has hit the center stage again. Not many moons ago President Maithripala Sirisena launched the "Gramashakthi Peoples’ Movement" aimed at strengthening the rural economy to alleviate poverty in the country. Ambitious enough, it envisages fulfilling the requirements of the people living in 15,000+ villages across the country. Further, it expects to boost rural agriculture and industry.

Dr. Siri Gamage, writing to "The Island" (on 17.10.2017.) argued a case for rural development vis-à-vis foreign funded mega projects in the context of development in Sri Lanka. His thought provoking article entitled "Rural reawakening to solve socio-economic problems" elaboratively analyzed the merits of rural development as opposed to the demerits of foreign funded development.

Harnessing of rural talent and collective intelligence of people for the greater good of society within a spiritual atmosphere Dr. Gamage identified as the main merits of rural development. This in fact is far-reaching than the mere materialistic, physical development that is thrust on us by the politicians and the foreign development partners, working hand in glove.  In contrary, some of the delimits of the latter model Dr. Gamage identified include dependence on foreign sources of funding, expertise, potential for corruption and ideology that it creates, i.e. idea that we don't have necessary intelligence to conceptualize the problems and solutions. This has provided with enough food for thought for the development planners of this country and their critics.

Mega Projects – Sri Lankan experience

It is equally heartening to see that now at least some segments of the population have come to question the worthiness of some of the mega development projects that were carried out in this country, lately. Needless to say, these were carried out at the expense of colossal sums of money, where the ordinary citizen of the country is the ultimate payer. These include the disastrous Uma Oya and Oluvil (harbour) projects, which in fact are real engineering debacles. The government has now decided to shut down the Oluvil harbour, only four years since its opening in September 2013. Recently, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources minister Mahinda Amaraweera announced that maintenance of the harbour, which is a "white elephant", is unfeasible.

The devastation caused to the social life of the people in and around Bandarawela and its environment by an ill-conceived Uma Oya project is now well known to the people of this country. Enough and more had been said about it in the media. (Environment & Society carried a special edition titled "Uma Oya disaster" on 15.05.2017.) Although now the engineers seem to have embroiled in a never-ending sealing exercise to check the water leak, which to this day had led to the wasteful flow of insurmountable volumes of ground water, according to some "the worst is yet to come".

The impact of Southern Expressway had on the worsened flood situation in the south of the country last May-June is undeniable. Further, the Colombo Port City project has come to have its telltale effect on the western coast, which again as for the predictors is "the worst is yet to come".

Now the people having made to swallow the bitter pill of "development" over and over again by the authorities, have got their act together, in asking unpropitious question "Development, for whom?"

Against this backdrop, Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka has pounced hard on the controversial Central Expressway project. "The Island" reported last Saturday the Minister claiming that the country would have to bear an additional debt of Rs. 1,644 billion for the construction of the 356 km highway.

The Minister, himself an engineer, doing some number crunching, equated building of one kilometer of the proposed expressway (at Rs. 5 billion per km) to providing sanitary facilities for around 20,000 families in Colombo or to build flats for around 1,000 low income families or to construct condominiums for 5,000 poor families or to rehabilitate 50 hospitals in rural areas. He had further said that with funds to be spent on the expressway 30,000 new technical jobs, a luxury bus service to reduce congestion, construction of the second runway of the Bandaranaike International Airport, a 200MW power plant, construction of east and west terminals of the Colombo Port, the renovation of Sapugaskanda refinery, the construction of two water reservoirs to supply water to Colombo and flyovers and tunnels and new roads for Colombo to ease the traffic congestion could be undertaken.

What Minister Ranawaka had said cannot be taken lightly. After the devastating floods in the south last May-June, he was among the first to point the finger at the Southern Expressway. Had been the minister of Environment and Power and Energy for two back to back terms during the last regimen, undoubtedly, Ranawaka knows well about the nitty-gritty of these mega projects.

Sri Lanka is infamous for the corruption associated with expressway building. Two weeks ago "Environment & Society" ("The Island" of 09.10.2017.) went to town on this aspect quoting the World Bank and University of Oxford estimates. All expressway constructions in Sri Lanka except the Kottawa – Godagama sections of the Southern expressway have been much higher than the recommended maximum accepted cost per km of USD 7.8 million (approximately SLR 1 Billion).

Expressways at Rs. 5 billion per km vis-à-vis Rural Roads at Rs. 2.5 million

The National Physical Plan (NPP) provides the blue print for the country’s physical development agenda from 2011 through 2030. It proposes adding 1,000km more to the highway system of the country. This will further replenish the existing 11,600+km national highways that include the existing Kadawatha-Matara expressway, while connecting it with the Colombo-Katunayake expressway. The low end of the expressway building estimate stands around Rs. 5 billion per km.

As ever, despite the building of highways and superhighways, the fruits of "development" are yet to reach the people. (On the contrary, it has brought in death and destruction to their doorstop, as we saw following the deluge that affected the south in May-June).

One important reason for this developmental paradox is that the expressways lie miles away from the country’s all important and widespread economic foci – the rural areas. According to the 2012 Census and Statistics, 81.8% of the country’s population lives in rural and estate areas of the country. Farming along with home-based and other small scale industries take place there. (And also the biggest contributors to the country’s economy – the women folk. They include the women employed in the gulf, who stitch garments in the factories in the big cities and who toil in the tea, rubber and other plantation industries). Pathetically, almost 70 years after the country’s independence, those areas still remain very much underserved, and the rural road system is a classic case in point.

Rural Roads

According to the National Road Master Plan (2007 – 17) of the Road Development Authority, there are 115,862 km of roads dispersed across the country. Of these 11,671 km roads are termed national roads and come under the central government. They comprise the inter-provincial trunk roads connecting major cities and ports and inter-provincial arterial roads connecting major urban centres. All these roads are well paved.

Provincial roads, which are the second tier of roads, are 15,532 km in length and are administered by the Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government and maintained by the provincial administration. By function they connect settlements with markets. Of these, only 67% of these are paved.

The third tier, local authority roads, spread through 64,659 km of length and breadth of the country, is the longest network of road structure. While they too come under the Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government, the relevant local government bodies maintain them. Only 13% of these roads, which in practice traverse through the real economic heartlands, are paved. In other words, 87% of the country’s rural roads still remain unpaved.

In addition, a fourth category termed "unclassified" roads is found in the plantation, irrigational and forest areas in the country and it accounts for approximately 24,000km in length.

Rural Road Development

An Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded project named "i-road" (for Integrated Road Investment Programme) is underway since 2014 to improve the rural roads in the country. While an estimated 3,000km of rural roads in Southern, Sabaragamuwa, Central, North Central, North Western Provinces and Kalutara district in the Western Province will be improved by this project, it also expects to maintain these roads for three years through civil works contracts. At present this project is underway in the Kalutara, Kegalle, Rathnapura, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Matale districts.

Most importantly, 1,200km of rural road development in the first phase of the project is expected to take place at Rs. 35 billion, just a fraction of what is spent on expressway construction.

According to the ADB’s environmental consultant of the project Mr. Athula Priyantha, this particparticular road buildingproject takes cognizance of manym aspects related to rural development including social and environmental aspects.

This project undertakes to develop the existing ROWs (road of ways) in the selected provinces. These are the roads that come under provincial councils.
The first phase of the project "i-road 1" is now underway in the Southern,
Sabaragamuwa, Central, North Central, North Western Provinces and in Kalutara district. Once that is over the second phase of the project "i-road 2" will be implemented in the Northern, Eastern and Uva Provinces.


Priyantha stressed, "Social and environmental components are two important aspects of this project. The project has taken all measures to minimize the negative impacts on the social life of people and the environment. For example,roads are widened only if there are safety or severe space issues. Land acquisition, if absolutely needed only,
will take place only with the concurrence of the land owners. There is no
forcible eviction of people. And there is a special grievances redress mechanism embedded in the programme to take care of the communities’ concerns".
 

Priyantha further elaborated on the grievances redress mechanism in place.
"The people can make their complaints anytime. Even there are complaint boxes put up by the roadside for this purpose. The social and environment consultants, contractor and the RDA, which is the client, comprise the lowest level of the mediation board. If the issue is not redressed at that level, then it will betaken to a higher level where the Grama Niladhari heads the committee that includes a community representative and a women’s representative in addition to the other three. If the issue is not resolved there, then it could be taken to a further higher level headed by the Divisional Secretary."


Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Priyantha identified the M&E component
of the project as a special strength."There is a special team to monitor the
progress of the project round the clock. Also they look into a number of social and environmental dimensions and complaints received from pubic".

 Safety of the people is one aspect that the project design has given high priority to. "The number of accidents, their nature and awareness programmes conducted for the communities are monitored and evaluated on monthly basis. The project is also equally concerned about the safety of the workers and has taken all precautionary measures to minimize the risks to the workers," said Priyantha.


Priyantha, commenting on the environmental aspect of the project, said: "Felling of trees are minimal throughout this project. For each tree that is felled, three saplings should be planted. The project takes special precautions not to pollute the waterways and ground water. It also monitors if there is any soil erosion as a result of road construction".


Even the supply of earth and boulders for the construction of roads needs
proper licenses.

Refuse disposal according to Priyantha is another aspect that has received top priority under the project. "The earth removed should be well taken
care of. It cannot be left alone by the roadside, and needs to be disposed of at the identified disposal yard. The disposal sites should also have a special restoration plan and it is the responsibility of the contractor to see that the restoration has taken place duly before he is paid. The Pradeshiya Sabha has to issue a clearance certificate to this effect."
 

Roads are needed for the country’s development and more so at places where the economic activities are vibrant and masses live in the backyard of development. In this regard the rural road development project funded by the ADB is a jewel in the crown, and there is many a lesson the bigger projects can learn from it.